The Marriage Amendment: The very vocal opposition

We received several pieces on the proposal to add the Marriage Amendment to the state constitution, all against it. Read them here. The upcoming Sunday Forum is also about the amendment, with only one letter supporting it. What do you think?

A move to make a ban on same-sex unions part of our state constitution would only burden businesses, especially North Carolina’s burgeoning economy of tech innovators and content producers – sometimes called “the creative class.”  Tami Fitzgerald missed this point in her Point of View article on Sept. 9, and, even worse, lawmakers are missing the boat, too.   

In his seminal book, The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida makes a compelling case for diversity and creating a welcoming environment both for gay employees and for their straight co-workers who place a premium on tolerance.  According to polls, our up-and-coming generation of workers -- people in their early thirties and twenties – that will eventually run large companies and start their own businesses increasingly support the rights of same sex couples.  

Certainly, many young companies that now employ dozens or hundreds and may go on to employ thousands are in the Triangle because it’s easier to recruit and retain the best and the brightest in an area where everyone feels welcome.

Why would the General Assembly move to take down those "welcome" signs at a time when our state desperately needs jobs and investment?  Why are lawmakers convening a special session to tackle this manufactured “issue”?  

There are no good answers, and the questions themselves enough for voters to call lawmakers onto the carpet.

Eric Boggs
CEO, Argyle Social
Durham

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The upcoming bills seeking to further ban same-sex marriage in the state constitution are a perfect way to incite hostility on North Carolina's creative economy. For those of us working in the fields of innovation and content creation, we are already struggling to slow the "brain drain" of the best talent from our state. Given our current fiscal challenges, why would lawmakers see this as good timing to stir up a highly charged and unproductive issue? It won't change state policies and will only further entice our creative workers to leave North Carolina.

It is well documented by writers such as Richard Florida, that tolerance is a key ingredient for the creative workforce. This doesn't mean that all creative workers are gay. In fact most are not. However the spirit of tolerance is key to creative teams working well together. These teams are working on some of North Carolina's toughest challenges. As a result, Duke Energy, GSK and RBC Bank are among the many world-class companies that embrace policies supporting diversity.

Eighty-nine percent of Fortune 500 companies prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, including Bank of America, Lowe’s, the aforementioned Duke Energy, BB&T, and Reynolds American (the five largest North Carolina-based public companies in that order).  Many trumpet internal benefits packages for same-sex couples.

Duke – which just merged with Progress Energy – made it plain in 2005 that domestic partner benefits were among its most important recruitment tools. And Bank of America’s headquarters is in North Carolina because of a 1998 agreement between NationsBank and then San Francisco-based Bank of America to offer domestic partnership benefits to same sex partners of employees.  

A constitutional amendment could trip up such internal policies and cause undo hardship for businesses and people. It will also certainly stir up controversy on an issue already settled.

House Bill 777 and Senate Bill 106 have no teeth. A law defining marriage as between a man and a woman already exists. In proposing them, North Carolina lawmakers are showing a very cynical side: that they prize fear-mongering on an ineffectual bill over passing real laws that can actually help retain its most talented citizens and grow North Carolina's economy.

Aly Khalifa
Raleigh

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The proposed “marriage definition” amendment is a momentum-killer for economic growth in North Carolina.  Opportunities for our businesses to recruit and retain talent would be diminished with this bill. New businesses — looking for the best place to locate — would need to consider the implications of choosing a state where the constitution explicitly prohibits the possibility of equal rights for the LGBT population.

The truth is that most Fortune 500 companies provide equal benefits for same-sex couples, as do many leading companies based in North Carolina.  More than 50 major companies in North Carolina offer same sex domestic partner benefits, including Bank of America, the fifth largest Fortune 500 Corporation. In addition, most technology-based start-up companies, which are key for job creation in the future, offer same sex domestic partner benefits.  

While some states have chosen to write discrimination based on sexual orientation into their constitutions, the direction in the business community is by far the opposite.  The same goes for the trend in public opinion.

As an entrepreneurially active professor here at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, I brought my family to North Carolina in part because of its dedication to looking toward the future and embracing innovation.  As a researcher and entrepreneur focused on discovering cures for cancer and infectious diseases, I can attribute success in North Carolina to the foresight of our state’s past and present leaders who knew that to succeed our state would need to remain competitive and forward-thinking with its policies.

My initiatives require highly skilled, highly educated, dedicated individuals, people willing to sacrifice for the common good.  But now, there are some that do not value this progress and want to cement us to the past.  The proposed anti-LGBT “marriage definition” amendment will drive people away from our universities and the state — and not just those who are directly affected, but those who believe in equal rights for all.

By limiting the rights of some citizens, we will limit our ability to create, recruit, and retain corporations, jobs, and talented people, which will reduce North Carolina’s economic growth potential at exactly the wrong time. North Carolina has an opportunity to be a 21st century business powerhouse.  An ideological social agenda could sabotage our state’s economic growth.
 

Professor Joseph M. DeSimone
Department of Chemistry
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill

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Esse quam videri. “To be, rather than to seem.”
 
It is our state motto, and I do my best to follow it. I wish I could say the same for proponents of the 2012 ballot initiative for a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. They want you to believe the amendment is pro-marriage, when it will prohibit gay and lesbian people from getting married.

They want you to believe it protects children, when it will teach them to discriminate against those who are gay and lesbian, or to hate themselves for being so.

They want you to believe it will protect an institution from redefinition, when the institution has already been redefined several times over. Just ask interracial couples. Or divorced and remarried couples. Or couples who do not view their marriage as a property transaction (the wife being the husband’s property).

They want you to believe it is necessary to block legal recognition of same-sex marriage in North Carolina. To the extent lawyers and legislators are making that argument, it is particularly disingenuous. North Carolina law already defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

“But wait!” cry the proponents. “We need a state constitutional amendment to protect our statute from activist judges who are not beholden to the electorate!”

First of all, if the U.S. Supreme Court ever rules that the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from marriage discrimination against gays and lesbians, it won’t matter what laws are on the books or in the constitution of any state. That will be the supreme law of the land, just as Loving v. Virginia struck down marriage discrimination laws based on race.

But what about the prospect of activist state judges? Unlike federal judges, our state judges are elected. To get and keep their jobs, they must get past a majority of the same voters who elect our legislators, governors, and councilors of state.

So how inclined do you think they will be toward “judicial activism” that legalizes same-sex-marriage in contravention of state and federal law?

If the answer isn’t inherently obvious, look no further than what the North Carolina Supreme Court did earlier this year with a proposal by the statewide leadership of the legal profession to discourage discrimination in the practice of law.

After much debate, the North Carolina State Bar Council declined to adopt a rule prohibiting lawyers from discriminating in the practice of law based on race, gender, national origin, religion, age, sexual orientation or gender identity. Instead, the Council decided to put that language in the preamble to the rules, which sets an aspirational tone for the profession, but does not provide a basis for ethical sanctions.

Although state law presumes the validity of such actions by the Council, the state Supreme Court rejected the preamble amendment. Although comprised of elected officials who routinely explain why they reach their judicial decisions, the Court declined to explain why it reached that legislative decision.

As someone involved in the process, I can only presume the Court capitulated to the intense lobbying effort by those who opposed the language for one reason: its inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered human beings among those whose access to the courts should not be blocked by discriminating lawyers.

Think about that. If the North Carolina Supreme Court just rejected a non-binding ethical initiative that would protect gays and lesbians from discrimination by lawyers in the practice of law, does anyone really believe the Court is poised to overturn state law and establish a right to same-sex marriage?

Since the marriage amendment is not needed to protect the institution, or children, or the electorate from activist judges, then who or what is it really designed to protect?

Apparently, Republicans. On June 2, House Republican leaders met with their caucus behind closed doors, but they didn’t realize their comments were being fed through an open mic to reporters. Among other things, according to N&O reports, they discussed the real reason behind the marriage amendment initiative: organizing their 2012 “ground-game” and “get-out-the-vote” efforts.

Like so much else, it all comes back to gaining and retaining power, even if you have to mine hate and fear to do so.

The cost to our state? More attention will be diverted from the real issues we face. More money will be dumped into politics over the next year, to support and oppose the initiative. More hateful rhetoric will be spewed into a public discourse that already seems to appeal to the worst of human nature. In short, more reasons to move apart than to come together.

Regardless of what it seems, it is what it is. And it should not pass.

Bradley Bannon
Attorney
Raleigh

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In my mind, there is no good reason to prohibit same-sex marriage. The large majority of the medical establishment has not considered homosexuality an "illness" for a long time, there is no evidence that two parents of the same sex are inadequate at raising a child and economic reasons are absolutely ridiculous in trying to justify denying civil rights to a substantial demographic of the population.

The only reason left would be religious beliefs, and although I respect the right of everyone to have their own faith and adhere to it, the separation of church and state is explicitly stated in the Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." If the government favors certain religious organizations by banning same-sex marriage, is it not discriminating against those who religious beliefs promote same-sex marriage?

Barring marriage privatization (as I'm sure most people aren't at the point of accepting that idea), the best solution is to legalize same-sex marriage, but not require that religious officials perform it. That way, homosexuals can be given the same rights as everyone else, but religious leaders can refuse to marry them if it interferes with their beliefs.

Thomas Hodges
Durham